Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (Xbox 360) Preview

The Metal Gear Solid franchise continues with a bold, new take on the series with Konami’s Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. This is a new action-focused game that stars Raiden, a featured player of MGS2 and MGS4. The game is a direct sequel and takes place three years after MGS4. Cyborg technology has become more prevalent throughout society. The Patriots organization has collapsed and the Private Military Companies they controlled have gone rogue and become unstable as well as becoming associated with criminal entities. Raiden is a member of a peace-keeping PMC called Maverick Security. Unfortunately for Raiden he looks like he’s been through hell as he’s become even more cybernetic than he was before.

In the demo I got to play at E3’s Konami booth, you get to play as Raiden starting out in a virtual training missions. Raiden’s handler allows him to test his new skills and abilities against enemy cyborgs and even the Metal Gear Gekko unit. While previous MGS games focused on stealth and evasion of the enemy, this one is much more focused on action, melee, and hack-and-slash combat. The controls and action are very fluid and responsive. Basically this is Metal Gear meets Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry. Raiden’s primary weapon are his swords and blades he can extend from his legs. He can activate a ZanDatsu Cut mechanic that allows you to in slow motion cut anything in front of you into ribbons. This feature was extremely satisfying. It sort of takes the concept of using your analog stick of controlling Raiden’s sword from MGS2 and dials it up to 11. The power and abilities of Raiden in action are like something out of a badass anime or manga. Raiden can parry and clash swords with his opponents which is really cool.

After taking out some enemies and confiscating a special activation key from a cyborg baddie, you can advance to the next part of the stage. In this part Raiden gets to face a tricked out enemy chopper which you have to dodge its missiles. You have to damage the chopper with a rocket launcher you can pick up in the area which will briefly bring the chopper down and you can cut it down with your sword. The Konami reps were extremely tight-lipped about plot and character details. One interesting detail though is that when I pointed out Solid Snake’s inevitable death from the end of MGS4, they seemed to hint that was not the end of Solid Snake and said, “that’s what they want you to think.” I really hope they aren’t yanking my chain here.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance will be hitting the Xbox 360 and PS3 in early 2013.